Getting on the First Page of Google

On page optimisation is the main step in getting onto the first page of Google. When a site is designed from the ground up, with user experience design in mind, it takes into account how to best integrate how a person will use the site, and how search engines will index it. Starting with research is the best way to design a website.

first page of google

Being on the first page of Google requires constant effort.

Create Fresh Content Regularly

Fresh content ensures that a site is indexed when the bots crawl the Internet, and returns relevant results. Well researched content provided from a foundation of valid sources and offering authoritative trustworthy content on a regular basis will ensure persistent results in SERPs.

Google bots measure the amount of time that users spend reading articles on a website; that means that your ranking will be demoted if you provide poor content quality that readers quickly leave. Content that is designed to provide answers and solutions for end users and is well written will quickly move a website up the ranks.

Avoid duplicate content; also avoid writing content that is too similar on a website; vary the type of topics that are offered on a particular page. Duplicate content across the Internet is picked up by Google and if it is not original content, it gets ignored in the results pages.

Complementary Images that are Tagged Correctly

Appropriate images that suit the topic and material are a feature of quality on a well-designed website. Find quality stock images, or creative images that merge well with the article content and that provide cues for the reader. If you are including any statistics, it is a good idea to showcase the information in a graph or table, so it is easily understood.

Your own quality images also enhance a website. When images are tagged properly for SEO, this will increase site rankings. Use appropriate keywords and design the site from the ground up having used the right keywords. This is why it is so important to do your keyword research before anything else!

Keyword Research Tools for SEO

keyword research tools

There are a lot of useful keyword research tools to choose from.

There are a number of keyword research tools for developing website content and assisting in creating a designing a website that ranks number one on a Google search engine results page. In a previous article, we have gone into more details about some of the best free keyword research tools.

These tools will help you get on the right track when finalising your keyword list. Have a look below at some basic details of popular keyword tools:

Google Keyword Planner

This tool helps you to find new keyword and ad group ideas, obtain search volumes for particular keywords, help to delineate which are the better keywords to use in organic searches and which to use in pay-per-click campaigns. Google Keyword Planner also helps with metrics related to particular types of searches, to help determine whether or not there is enough volume for a particular search on the Internet.

KW Finder

This is a long tail keyword research tool. Long tail keywords are three or four word phrases which are very specific to what you are selling. They are particularly relevant to e-commerce sites.

Long tail keywords help to pull customers who want precisely what you have to offer. For example, a search for “buy sofa,” will return many thousands of results, and you would likely not sit at the top of search engine rankings.

However, if you are selling a “green velvet chaise longue,” you are more likely to end up having a customer who is ready to purchase what you have to offer. Your return on investment for long tail keywords is much more significant, although traffic volumes to your site might be lower. Long tail keywords usually yield better conversion rates.

Keyword Explorer by Moz

keyword research tools

Moz Keyword Explorer is one of the most popular keyword tools.

Keyword Explorer adds extra dimensions to the generic keyword research tools available on the Internet. It provides information about opportunities to capitalise on particular keywords, for example it gives information about the click through ratio on certain keywords.

It measures metrics of certain keywords, and weights the value of a keyword in a particular campaign or content creation process. Keyword Explorer helps to provide a more strategic analysis of keywords, and offers a tool to help prioritise certain terms in order to create a stronger SEO campaign.

Keyword Tool

An expansion on Keyword Planner, long tailed keywords can be researched for sites such as Amazon, Bing, YouTube and The App Store. Keyword Planner doesn’t always show the long tailed keywords available, so Keyword Tool is far more useful in planning more niche sites.

SEMRush

SEMRush is feature rich, allowing for searches on keywords that appear on not just Google but also on Bing. Latent semantic indexing is based on ranking sites that appear in search results when the content is relevant to the search string, or consistent with the intent of the end user.

If a particular solution is sought, search engine results pages will respond with pages that give a solution, perhaps when not directly related to the actual keywords. SEMRush also allows for multiple translations of keywords, and integrates being able to design SEO for international application.

On Page Optimisation Methods to Rank Higher on Google

There are a number of ways to optimise a website, or a single page to return high on search engine results pages. Firstly, the URL should contain relevant keywords. The title tag should also include related keywords.

avoid duplicate content

It is important to ensure your URL contains relevant keywords.

The meta description should appear under the title tag; H1 headlines should have relevant keywords that are consistent with the title and URL reference; there should be appropriate keywords and long tailed keywords in the body and the introduction of the article. These keywords should be planned using a research tool first that gives a good indicator of metrics related to the content.

There should be a HTML sitemap in the footer, and external sitelinks to high authority sites. Internal page links to other relevant content within the website help to boost individual page rankings. These methods help to create on-site optimisation.

The Domain Name Chosen Will Help Boost SEO

Domain names are critical to increasing your page ranking in Google. When you choose a domain name, think about what people would enter into Google if they were looking for something in particular. A domain name should be relevant to what the content is that is contained within the website.

Let’s use SEO Shark as an example. Firstly, as you all know our business name is “SEO Shark” and our URL is “www.seoshark.com.au“. It is important that your business name and URL are similar, if not identical. As well as this, we have included the keyword “SEO” in our business name. This clearly shows to anyone searching, the type of business we are.

Design Meta Data, Title and Header Tags

Meta data, title tags, header tags and content descriptions all give Google an indicator of what is contained in a website. It is a complete waste of time to write incredible content and not program into a site what type of metadata and tags that assist Google to index it.

This type of information is read by the Google bots when they index a site, and they test the content both directly and do latent semantic indexing (determining whether the content is thematically consistent) against the site metadata and tags.

Use a Call to Action

first page of google

Call to action buttons should be a prominent feature.

When you give a call to action to readers to share your content, or to click on another link to follow up with more research, you are sending information back to Google bots that increase ranks. When end users interact more frequently with a page, people share your content on social media, provide reviews, comments and feedback, Google measures all of this.

Google measures time spent on a page, and checks to see if a site has had excellent reviews. If a site is consistent with a significant amount of time spent on a page, or has had a number of backlinks, or positive reviews, Google indexes it up higher in search engine results pages.

Conclusion

Search engine optimisation requires a persistent effort, from the conceptualisation of a website, through its entire existence. Any business that desires to stay ranking high on Google will need to keep putting its website through quality controls, keep editing its content, and stay abreast of what Google updates are doing.

Fresh content is reviewed constantly by Google, as well as any new and interesting information, particularly in the way it is presented will appear on Google’s results pages. New ways of giving snippets of information are being offered by Google, and webmasters are being challenged to introduce ways to structure content and data in order to take advantage of these means.

We invite you to share with us what experiences you have had or what innovations you have tried in order to rank first on Google. Please feel free to share your comments with us!

 

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